It came from the West, slow bubbling, carving runnels in the ancient clayFleet runs the river, swift to downfall, flowing to dismayThe oldbourne, holding a memory of peat; a concrete song in fateBeneath dappled banks the trout; unknowing, languid, waitWhere the water tumbles, like a trace of light, to spin the gateThe Lost River Fleet, cased in pure concrete weightSplit from her bed, bound in tunnels, flowing unknowing, blindAt times she finds the whispers of the other ghostsThe Effra hissing, missing deep beneath the crazy tramp of feetUnseen, conveying the carcass of a rat below the hustle of market streetsWhere once stood proud banks and clear flow,Stinks Bazalgette's high level interceptor sewer nowConstricted in culverts, to take diverted course about the tube mapRobbed of riverhood by the need to pave and trapThe Falconbrook stumbles on, the Neckinger quickLunging through the tunnels and pipes of forgotten brickBut in the case of ghostwater they forget, these engineer folkWardens of the dammed, stemmers of the tideway chokedWe, the lost streams of London, run forever freeFor where a river once was, it always will be.